Son Authority to execut Judgment because he is the Son of Man On which place the assemblies Annotations have this note Authority to execute Judgment is Supream power to Govern and Administer all things Because he is the Son of Man That is Not only as he is God but also as he is Man that all Men may see their Judge Rev. 1.7 And on the same John 5.27 The Dutch Annotators say as followeth And hath given him power to execute Judgment also i. e. To Govern all things with power of Life and Death and especially at the last day Mat. 28.18 Rom. 14.9 Rev. 1.18 Because he is the Son of Man that is Because he having assumed the humane nature into the unity of his person is appointed by God for a Judge and Mediator and shall also as Man execute the same office Dan. 7.13 John 17.2 Acts 10.42 and 17.31 The last English Annotations 2d volume have the like note on John 5.27 But especially Mr. Hutcheson in his exposition on John 5.27 Is full and clear His words are these †Hutcheson on John pag. 76. on the 27th verse of the 5th Chapter Christ declareth that not only as God he hath a Fountain of Life equally with the Father but That he hath Authority given him from the Father to execute or do Judgment even because he is the Son of Man By executing or doing Judgment of which v. 22. We are to understand a Dominion and Government over all things and particularly the power of Life and Death to Condemn or absolve Which will be especially verified in the Judgment of the last day of which he speaketh v. 28.29 And Christ saith Authority is given him to do this Because he is the Son of Man or as he is the Son of Man Whereby we are not to understand his humane nature simply considered but his office and his humane nature as united in one person with the Godhead that because he is God-Man the Mediator of sinners and took on our nature for that end therefore he hath all power committed to him as Mediator for the good of the Church the Exercise whereof he fully entred upon after his resurrection Mat. 28.18 Rom. 14.9 Rev. 1.18 Pril 2.8 9 10 11. And he is the visible Actor and Judge in these Administrations which could be done by none but him who is God also and particularly in the last day wherein he shall be Judge in visible Shape Acts 10.42 and 17.31 Ibid. Doctrin 3. Mr. Hutcheson saith that Christ hath a donative Kingdom as Mediator God-Man for the good of his Church c. And Doct. 6. He saith that Christ in the work of Redemption and Administration of all things for the elect's behoofe is the Father's Commissioner and hath a delegated Authority c. And a little after in the same place he saith That as the Son of Man and Mediator this Authority is given to Christ as to a delegate Thus Hutcheson By all which you may easily see that Christ knows very well That the office of a Judge belongs to the Mediator And truly it is matter of wonder to me that ever a Sober Man should have Printed and Published to the world That Christ knew that the office of a Judge did not belong to a Mediator And yet not content with this Mr. G. 2dly Asserts that Christ hath disowned the office of a Judge as not belonging to a Mediator I seriously profess it grieves me to find such things in the Ingenious Mr. Goodwins book and tho he hath made himself my adversary without any just cause given by me that I know of yet I am not willing to Animadvert on this assertion of his so severely as the nature of the thing deserves I shall only tell my Reverend Brother 1. That here he asserts that whch he can never prove and I advise him as his friend not to attempt the proof of it for by so doing he will but make the matter worse and some of the Lovers and Honourers of our Lord Christ may be ready to appear against Mr. G. in this cause of Christ and to maintain the negative that Christ never disowned the office of a Judge as that which did not belong to a Mediator I hope Mr. G. will never be so impertinent as to alledg for proof of his assertion that in Luk. 12.14 Christ said Man Who made me a Judge or a divider over you For that relates wholly to another matter and the meaning is that Christ was not called to the office of a civil Judge Mediator or Arbitrator between the two Brothers who differed about the dividing of the Inheritance And yet I do not know any place of Scripture that seems to be so much for his purpose if he can but make people believe that the Meer sound of the words is the sure and best means to find out the true meaning of a Text. 2. I think it may not be amiss to tell my Reverend brother That the most vile Sect of the old Gnosticks the Disciples of Valentinus were all for Christ's being a Saviour but would not have him to be a Lord For if he be once admitted to be a Lord and King he may prove to be a Judge too and to have power both to threaten and also Judge and Condemn unbelievers and wicked livers such as the old Gnosticks were And that is a dangerous business to such as them Hence as the Ancient father Ireneus tells us * Salvatorem dicunt nec enim Dominum eum Nominare volunt c. Iren. adversus haereses Lob. 1. Cap. 1. They say that Christ the Saviour for they will not call him Lord did nothing in publick for the space of thirty years They thought belike that it did not belong to the office of a Saviour to be a Lord or a Judge therefore they would not have him called Lord but Saviour For that sweet word Saviour in their Judgment Savoured of nothing but free grace to ill livers Whereas the word Lord or Judge Savours of power to command obedience and Authority to threaten and punish the disobedient which very thing made the word it self so unsavoury to them that they were not willing to pronounce it with their lips But I am sure Mr. G. should know and I hope he doth know better things The Reverend Dr. Owen in the Prolegomena to the 1 volume of his Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us a great and useful truth That Christ is our Saviour as he is our great Prophet Priest and King and that he carries on the Work of our Salvation in executing the three several parts of his Mediatorial Office to wit of Prophet Priest and King and all sober Divines that I know are of that mind and some of them too give very hard Words unto and pass a severe censure upon such Men as are for dividing of Christ and for receiving him and his Doctrine by halves Witness Bibliander in that book which I mentioned
one precept that belongs to it will Common sense suffer a Man to infer that therefore it hath in it all precepts that do not belong to it Mr. G. speaks here of the Law that Christ was under and of the Law as it was when Christ was under it in his State of Humiliation Now I will name one precept which the Law that Christ obeyed and fulfilled had not then in it and that was the precept recorded in Gen. 2.17 Of not eating of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge Our blessed Lord most perfectly obeyed the Law that he was under And yet he did not obey that particular precept of not eating the said Fruit. If it be said that he did not disobey that precept therefore he obeyed it I deny the Consequence obeying and disobeying are not Contradictories but contraries and there is a medium or mean between them And the mean was this that our Lord Christ did neither obey nor disobey that precept of not eating of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge Because as it may be there was no such Tree or Fruit then in the World so it is certain there was then no such precept forbidding Christ or any Man else to eat of the Fruit of that Tree it was at first but a Temporary precept and its obligation had ceased and was utterly gone long before the Son of God was made of a woman made under the Law Gal. 4.4 Now where such a precept doth not at all oblige there is no place either for obedience or disobedience to the said precept I grant it to be a most certain truth that our Lord Christ suffered Death the penalty threatned against Man for disobeying that and the other precepts but it doth not at all follow from thence that Christ either obeyed or disobeyed that positive Temporary precept He most perfectly obeyed every precept of any Law that he was under and so fulfilled all Righteousness His Obedience also was equivalent yea in respect of its worth arising from the infinite Dignity of his Person it was more than equivalent to all the Obedience which Mankind should have performed to that and all other precepts and yet for all that it doth not follow that Christ in humane nature obeyed that precept which was not then in rerum natura so as to oblige any Man to obedience The perfect Law then which Christ most perfectly obeyed wanted the foresaid precept and yet it was perfect because it had all the precepts that belonged to it and wanted only that which did not belong to it Further since my R. B. Speaks here of the Moral Law it is freely granted and always was believed by me that it wants none of its own precepts and that by its own precepts it enjoyns every duty In that way which God intended it should enjoyn every duty Those duties which fall under its precepts without any supernatural Revelation intervening and without any positive precept superadded to the Law of Nature it enjoyns and Commands by it self immediately But there are other duties which do not fall under its precepts without a supernatural Revelation and also without some positive precepts superadded to the Law of Nature and such duties it doth not enjoyn and Command by it self immediately but only mediately and by means of the said positive precepts which do first in order of nature enjoyn and command the said duties and then the Moral Law enjoyns also and commands the same duties by obliging us to obey the positive precepts which first in order of nature require and enjoyn them Thus as hath been shewed the Moral natural Law enjoyns and commands Faith in Christ the Mediator for Justification by his Righteousness only and Evangelical Repentance as a means to dispose and quality us for obtaining the pardon of our sins through Faith in Christs blood It doth not by it self immediately require such Faith and Repentance of all without exception that are under it For then it would have required them also of Christ who was made under the Law Gal. 4.4 It would have obliged the Mediator Christ Jesus to have believed in Christ for Justification and to have repented Evangelically for obtaining the pardon of his sins through Faith in his own Blood Which is absurd and blasphemous to assert But it ro wit the Moral Law requires Faith and Repentance of all that are under it mediately only by means of the positive precepts of the Gospel or Covenant of Grace as hath been before explained and proved But now so it is that the positive precepts of the Gospel or Covenant of Grace which require Faith in Christ the Mediator for Justification and Evangelical Repentance as a means to dispose and prepare us for obtaining pardon of sin were not given unto Christ himself to oblige him thereby to believe in himself for Justification and Evangelically to repent for pardon of sin And therefore the natural Moral Law which he was under and perfectly obeyed did not oblige him unto Justifying Faith and Evangelical Repentance as duties incumbent upon him and to be performed by him in his own person Thus we give upon our principles a clear account how our Lord Christ perfectly obeyed the Law and yet was under no obligation at all to believe in himself for Justification nor to repent for pardon of sin whereas it seems Mr. G. on his Principles must either hold that Christ so believed in himself and repented or else that he transgressed the perfect Law of God by not so believing and repenting Neither of which can be granted without the greatest absurdity Imaginable If he should here say That I my self have granted that the moral natural Law obliges all that are under it to a Legal Repentance But Christ himself was under it and then it will follow That he was obliged to a Legal Repentance which is as bad as to hold That he was obliged to an Evangelical Repentance I could easily answer him That he quite mistakes the matter I never said That the Law of Nature doth absolutely and actually oblige all that are under it to a Legal Repentance but only that it so obliges all mankind that are sinners and upon supposition that they be sinners But now our most holy Lord Jesus was no sinner nor is it possible that he could be a sinner Therefore he neither was nor could possibly be obliged to a Legal Repentance of his sins My R. B. will not own himself to be an Antinomian and therefore I do not say that he holds with some of that Sect that Christ believed for us with a Justifying faith and repented for us with an Evangelical Repentance in that he perfectly kept the Moral Law which by it self immediately requires such Faith and Repentance of all that are under it Only I desire him to guard against that Consequence and look well to it that it be not the natural off-spring of his beloved Opinion If any man should be so weak as to question How we can
all the Nations from Peru to Japan on condition they Obey the Command of the Gospel and Believe and Repent I Answer That consequence is false No such thing doth follow from the aforesaid Antecedent unless God Promulgate the Gospel-Covenant or Law of Grace to all those People and Nations without exception as he hath Promulgated it to us in these parts of the World For the Gospel Covenant or Law of Grace being a positive Constitution of God and having the force of a positive Law not knowable by the meer Light of Nature it doth not oblige any Man to Believe it and to be Subject and Obedient unto it unless it be sufficiently Promulgated to him Either then prove that the Gospel-Covenant or Law of Grace which are the same is sufficiently Promulgated to all the before-mentioned People and Nations or else you must let go that consequence as utterly inconsequent This you seem to be sensible of and therefore you undertake to prove that God hath Promulgated the Gospel-Covenant or Law of Grace to all Men in the world without exception a bold undertaking Now let us hear the proof why thus it is If God in giving his Moral Law to all reasonable Creatures said universally to Angels and Men do this and you shall live by the same rule if the Gospel is a New Law God speaks generally to all Men Believe and you shall live Here is my R. Brother's Argument but I heartily wish for his own Credit he had suppressed it and never suffered it to see the light For I think such a ridiculous weak Argument is not to be met with in any learned Author and to make the weakness of it appear I Answer 1. That his Supposition from whence he infers his Position is not true if it be understood of the Moral-Natural-Law only materially considered before God put it into the form of a Covenant by adding to it the conditional Promise If ye do this ye shall live In that case by giving unto Man the Precepts of the Moral Natural Law without the Promise of Life God had said unto him Do this which those Precepts require but he had not said unto him Thou shalt live if thou do this My R. Brother may remember that he himself in Pag. 50. affirms That Adam as soon as he had Existence was presently bound to Obey God in all that he would Command him though he had made no Promise to him of any Reward And if Adam was bound to obey God in all that he would Command him then cerrainly he was bound to obey him in all that he did Command him though he had made no Promise to him of any Reward But I hope Mr. G. will not say that Adam was bound also to believe actually that he should live for any determinate time without a conditional Promise of Life to him if he continued in his Obedience For if God would he might have Annihilated Adam again even after he had been perfectly Obedient for a time and before he had committed any the least Sin I say God might have done this by his Absolute Soveraignty if he had not engaged himself not to do it by the Promise of Life to Adam For God's giving of Life with the Precepts of the Natural Law to Adam did not of it self without the Promise of Life necessarily oblige him not to Annihilate him Before and without the Promise of Life God by his Absolute Power and Soveraign Free-Will might have Annihilated or not Annihilated Adam And therefore in giving the Moral Law to Adam without the Premise of Life God did not say to him Do this and thou shalt live He said indeed to him Do this but he did not thereby say to him Thou shalt live if thou do this And without God's saying to him by Promise Thou shalt live if thou do this Adam could have no Infallible Assurance that God would not use his Power and Soveraign Free-Will in Annihilating him He could not by all that God had done for him in Creating him and Concreating in him the Principles and Precepts of the Law of Nature have any Infallible Assurance that he would continue to him the happy Life he had given him and that he would afterwards prefer him to a better that is to an Heavenly and Eternal Life The doing of this depended on God's Free-Will and therefore Adam's Assurance that it should be done depended upon the Revelation of God's Will and the Promise of God to Man That if he never Sinned he should never Die but live happily sorever And this was not only possible but it seems to have been so De facto For in Creating Man after his own Image God gave him the Principles and Precepts of the Moral Law but it can never be proved that God gave him the Promise of Life till some time after that he said unto him as it is written Gen. 2.16 17. In the day that thou catest thereof thou shalt surely die In which words the contrary promise is implied But 2dly If Mr. G. say That by God's giving unto man the moral Law he means God's giving him the moral Law formally as a Covenant with its federal Sanction of Threatning and Promise then indeed I grant That by giving unto Adam the moral Law as a federal Law God said unto him Do this and thou shalt live but if thou do it not thou shalt die But then tho God said this to Adam by giving him that federal Law yet it is not so clear that he saith the same thing at this day to all Adam's Posterity even to the most barbarous Heathens by giving unto them the moral natural Law I do grant That together with the humane Nature God gives the first Principles and Precepts of the moral natural Law unto all mankind that have the use of Reason even to the most Barbarous Heathens yea that he gives also the Principles of the Natural Law to their Infants I say he gives them in Power but not in Act but that God gives unto every one of the most barbarous Nations the same promise which he gave at first unto Adam and that he says unto every one of them Do this and thou shalt live Keep the Precepts of the Law of Nature and thou shalt live Eternally Let him prove this at his leisure It will not suffice to say that God virtually and constructively made the said promise to every one of them as they were seminally and federally in Adam for tho that be very true and we know it by the written word or we should never have known it in an ordinary way yet it is nothing to our present purpose For now all the question is about the truth of Mr. G's words which suppose that God in giving his Moral Law to all reasonable Creatures said Universally to Men do this and you shall Live Now did God ever say this Universally to all mankind even to the most Barbarous Nations And doth he say so at this day And
may throw dirt at us in the Dark His inference then fails that if faith for instance be not a condition in a Law-sense it must be only in a Logical or Physical sense and so it will not be a proper condition For 1. Why may not some Logical condition be a proper condition 2. Tho Faith be not a condition in one Law-sense yet it is a condition in another Law-sense It is not a condition in the sense of the old Law of works but it is a condition in the Sense of the New Evangelical Law of Grace And from hence it appears that what he says of Logical and Physical Connexion in these propositions if a Man be reasonable he is capable of Learning c. And if Wood be laid to the fire it will burn is wholly impertinent to the present purpose For in these propositions the necessity of the Connexion between the Subjects and the Predicates arises from the very nature of the thing but in this conditional promise If thou sincerely believest thou shalt be Justified and Pardoned The necessary truth of the Connexion Doth not arise meerly from the nature of the things but from the Lord 's free and gracious will and positive Law-Constitution Revealed in the Gospel Rom. 10.8 9. And so Faith is neither A meer Logical nor Physical condition but it is a Moral Legal condition in a very safe and proper sense It is not Legal in the sense of the Law of works but it is Legal in the sense of the Law of Grace And so it is a gracious Evangelical condition What he talks p. 33. l. ult and p. 34. Of the orderliness of the Covenant and of the necessary consequence of Justification and Glory upon the duties of Faith and Repentance doth not one jot help him to break the force of our Arguments and to shew That the Covenant is not conditional and that the giving of the benefit is not suspended till the Condition be performed For we shewed in the Apology that the Covenant hath indeed an Order in it between the Duty and the Subsequent Benefit but that That Order is a Conditional Order constituted by the positive will of God revealed in the Gospel and that it is God's positive will to suspend his giving of the benefit for instance pardon of sin till we through his grace freely perform the duty of actual Faith So that we shall not be actually pardoned till we being adult have actually believed and then we shall be pardoned but not before This we proved and our Arguments remain unanswered and we know they can never be solidly answered We need no more Arguments to prove the Conditionality of the Covenant in the sense that we hold it to be conditional tho we are not without other Arguments and could tell him what it is like he knows well enough in what books written by Orthodox Divines he may find a great many more Arguments to this purpose To tell people confidently That because it is a Testament it can have no Condition is to deceive them For it may very well be a Testament and yet have a gracious Evangelical Condition A man can make his own Testament so as to prescribe proper conditions in it and sometimes doth so surely then the Lord could prescribe a Condition in his Testament and he hath done it But as he is a gracious Testator so the Condition prescribed in his Testament is gracious too It seems to be the fundamental mistake of some brethren to think that the Gospel of Christ is a Testament so absolute as not to partake of the nature of a proper Covenant whereas in truth the Gospel partakes both of the nature of an absolute Testament and also of a conditional Covenant And this it may very well do in different respects In respect of the absolute promises it partakes of the nature of an absolute Testament and in respect of the conditional promises it partakes of the nature of a conditional Covenant And then the absolute promise of Grace to perform the condition makes the conditional promises Eventually sure to all the elect And thus the Covenant is a Covenant of Grace indeed a Covenant well ordered in all things and sure 2 Sam. 23.5 But saith that R. B. pag. 33. By condition they mean not a condition properly in a Law or federal sense as we use the word in bargains between Man and Man Answer What then doth it follow that because we use not the word condition properly in the sense of a humane Law or Covenant therefore it cannot be a proper condition in another Law-sense to wit in the sense of a Divine Law of Grace This consequence we deny and so doth Mr. Fox and Mr. Durham and it lies on that brother to prove it for we do not take his word for a proof Again in pag. 34. He says That the conditional Particle If used in Testaments doth not suspend but demonstrate and design the thing promised Others would say but demonstrate and describe the Legatees and some certain time and manner of Conveyance From whence he would infer that there are no conditional promises in the Gospel I Answer 1. Suppose that were true of humane Testaments which are purely Testaments and do no ways partake of the nature of a conditional Covenant it doth not follow that it must be true also in the Divine Testament of the Gospel which partakes both of the nature of an absolute Testament and also of a conditional Covenant 2. It is not universally true of humane Testaments for I can make my Testament so as to suspend the giving of certain Legacies to persons named in it upon their performing of some condition so that if they perform the condition they shall have the Legacies but not till then And if they never perform the condition they shall never have the Legacies But that brother objects further that if the Author of the Apol. by suspension understand a legal suspension it is the same with a Legal condition which he has denied before for conditio est dispositionis suspensio ex eventu incerto ei opposito and has an obliging influence on the promiser and confers a title of right to the benefit promised Answer And we have shewed that this brother doth foully wrest the words of the Apol. to a sense quite different from that true sense which we professedly and expresly give of the word legal condition See in pag. 37.38 c. The explication which we give of it at large on purpose to prevent Mens misunderstanding of us as this Man doth The explication begins thus Which that our meaning to wit of a not Legal but Evangelical condition may be understood by all we explain thus we do not believe that our faith Repentance and sincere obedience which are conditions of Justification and Glorification according to the Tenour of the Covenant of Grace have the same place and office in this New Covenant and Law of Grace which most perfect and